Do you ever go for a walk for no other reason than pleasure? (So dog walking doesn't count for example, and neither does walking to work even if you could drive.)
Yes
22(71.0%)
No
9(29.0%)
Do you ever go for a bicycle ride for no other reason than pleasure?
Yes
11(36.7%)
No
19(63.3%)
Do you ever go for a drive or a motorbike ride for no other reason than pleasure?
Yes
4(13.8%)
No
25(86.2%)
Do you ever go for a run or a jog for no other reason than pleasure?
Yes
3(10.3%)
No
26(89.7%)
To make this perfectly clear, for a journey to be purely about pleasure there can't be any other reason to do it. So going for a walk in the country counts, but not if you had to walk the dog anyway. Going for a scenic drive counts, but not if you just took the scenic route to somewhere you had to get to anyway. Going for a jog or a run counts, but not if you're doing it partially to get fit.
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Comments
[You say dog walking doesn't count, does that mean going for a walk with a baby doesn't count? Or a teenager? What about a date-like walk with another adult? Or a non-date-like walk where you just like chatting to each other?]
Given how hard it is to schedule my life around work and children just to get my "keeping fit" time in, and an occasional date with my husband, the idea of having the time to go for a walk or run "just for fun" is hilarious.
* Not technically true, since my parents finally got fed up with my old bike cluttering up their garage and brought it to me some years ago, whereupon I forgot about it and left it outside all winter, gently rusting away. It's now stuffed in a leaky shed, where it's doubtless rusting even further. It also has no pedals. Pedals are quite useful things for a bike to have, I understand.
Many dogs seem to survive the consequent restriction and boredom without actually going insane, which demonstrates what a basically nice-natured and tolerant species they are.
*My hubby does and we own a car, but I don't think we ever go out in it just to drive around for pleasure. We drive out in it to go places to walk for pleasure, and sometimes we pick longer, more scenic routes there or back for pleasure, but we don't go out in it and not leave the car ever that I can recall.
You didn't include going for a swim for pure pleasure, which I definitely do (especially outdoors); and in general the pure pleasure elements outweigh the exercise elements for swimming by a mile. In fact, had I thought of it earlier, I'd have gone down to the lido today, but I realise that it's pointless now; it will be packed. Harrumph.
I like things like dance mat, and badminton, and so on, for their own sake, but I do them at least partly because there's an exercise benefit.
I'm not sure anyone runs for pure pleasure, even people who love running.
And with dogs; I know several people who got a dog because they like walking, and walking is even more fun with a dog... or they enjoy walking and want to do more of it, and having a dog is a way to inject more walks into their lives.
Edited at 2014-05-03 01:58 pm (UTC)
What about a scenic drive to get ice cream at a particularly attractive spot? It's not that we *need* the ice cream, or to drive to that particular place to buy it.
I sometimes run short distances like from my driveway to the mailbox, just because I want to run, or to skip and hop. Yet I suppose that wouldn't count, as technically I'm also getting the mail at the same time.
Other places, I sometimes want to break out into a run but don't, as it would make me look odd to anyone watching - and it's difficult to run when carrying several bags.
I used to "go for jogs", but that was definitely for fitness, as well as appeasing the inner desire to be able to break out into a run and run as fast as I could until I'm completely out of breath.
Part of the pleasure I get from activity is from feeling that I'm doing something to get fit, or to stay fit, or to achieve that inner version of the ideal me. From proving to myself that I can do something difficult in spite of the difficulty.
As for going for walks... I could eat my lunch at my desk, but I prefer to walk outside to the picnic area by the pond to eat there, so does that count? If I could teleport myself from my desk to the pond, I'd still prefer to walk, because the walk itself is enjoyable. But I also know that it gives me exercise, and I walk a longer route than necessary, in order to get that extra exercise, as well as getting the extra enjoyment of a longer walk. So I suppose that wouldn't count either.
I also like to climb stairs. I hardly ever use elevators. But I also know that climbing stairs gives me exercise, and I like knowing that I'm getting this extra exercise.
It seems that what you are asking is whether we would do these activities purely for their pleasure, even if we believed that doing them was bad for us rather than good. And that is a difficult question, as part of the pleasure is knowing that they are good for us. Could I see the activities as pleasurable even if I thought they were bad for me?
Suppose that I believed that being active made me less fit, less strong. Suppose I believed that there's only a finite amount of energy that a person has to begin with, and any activity uses it up, reducing the amount of potential activity one has left for the remainder of one's life - that there's no way of replenishing it. Suppose that once one's energy was used up, one would still live on, but as an invalid, weak and frail. Suppose my vision of an ideal person was someone with the largest amount of potential activity left - would I still choose to be more active than necessary, even if being active felt good? Is this what you are really asking?
Suppose that being active didn't increase nor decrease one's fitness level at all. Suppose that the only proven way to increase one's level of fitness, flexibility, and overall strength & health, is to sit quietly and meditate in a still position. Then, would one still choose to spend time doing physical activities for the pure pleasure of it? If one didn't even get any side-benefit of increased fitness from doing them? That's an interesting question, but again, hard to know how I would act if that scenario were actually real.
Another thought. Being active is supposed to make one feel good - to reduce depression and such. So one reason I sometimes do things like going for a walk, is because I hope that they will make me feel better. Not because I know that it will bring me pleasure, but that I hope it will make me feel better mentally. That's similar to doing it because I hope it will be good for me physically. So would that count?
I'll sometimes jog down a corridor or across the car park at work simply because I feel like running, but it's always when I was going that way anyway for some work related reason.
I haven't done any walking simply for pleasure for years. Too much other stuff to cram into my free time. Plus I hate getting rained on!